The Del Webb Yankees

Richard Sandomir’s fine piece in the Times on Colonel Jacob Ruppert, the beer baron whose money made the Yankees into the Yankees football jersey
long before George Steinbrenner was conceived, touches on, but does not dwell on, the subsequent reign of the man who made the Yankees, in some circles, less than likeable.

That would be Del Webb, who with his partner, Dan Topping, bought the club for $2.8 million in 1945, and then later sold it CBS in 1964 for $14 million. “Best deal I ever made,” said Webb, who made his money building things, sometimes for people of questionable legal and moral standing.

It was Ruppert who built the original Stadium, who signed Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, Henrich, Lazzarri—pick a name, find a Hall of Famer. But it was Webb who, expanding on Ruppert’s success, transformed the club into the object of fear, envy, and in cities that made up the American League map, occasional loathing.

Webb was not a presence in the clubhouse, save for appearances after yet another World Series victory where he could be spotted toward the back—a tall, bespectacled man with a receding hairline and a smile that revealed nothing. It was Topping who was seen at the ballpark, but then Topping, a rich kid and a dabbler, was occupied primarily with marriage, divorce, and remarriage. He did it five times, most famously to Sonja Henie, the Norwegian figure skating champion. Webb, on the other hand, was self-made, a one-time amateur ballplayer who, when illness ended his career, took up building houses in the Southwest. With the help of friends with influence, and with a reputation for finishing work on soccer jerseys
time, he expanded his business. By the time the war came, Webb landed a contract to build the internment camps where Americans of Japanese ancestry were imprisoned. If he felt bad about this, he never said so.